WoW: Warlords of Draenor

[Darmalus]

My reaction to these revelations would be stronger if they hadn't lost me right at the start with the time travel and parallel dimension plot. The whole things feels like disposable filler content and when all is killed and looted, we'll be right back where we started, as if SoO had lasted for 3 or 4 years.

I am looking forward to the UI improvements, but we get those with or without the expansion.

[Highlord Laan]

I'm not surprised at all by anything Blizzard does with WoW anymore. I'll come back when the Alliance is allowed to blow up a horde city and have it remain in game.

[Civil War Man]

So a couple other things from the Chilton interview:

The amount of time it will take for flying to be introduced in Warlords depends entirely on how positive or negative the player reaction is to no flying.
The main legendary item in Warlords is a ring, but they will give it some kind of visual effect. It won't be the only legendary of the expansion, though.
The content patch schedule is not set in stone, and seems to be entirely dependent on how much players like or hate the new content and how quickly they can get the next expansion out.
On that vein, there might not be more than 1 raid tier depending on how quickly they can get the next expansion ready. ("Some of it will depend on the time before the next expansion after Warlords. It is very possible that if we are successful and there is a shorter gap, then we won't necessarily want to have multiple raid tier content patches. Each raid content patch needs about four months to breathe. Any less than that and it feels like you really rushed through the content.")
No plans for a new Battleground, maybe a new Arena but no guarantees.
No class quests like the Warlock green fire line during this expansion, maybe in future ones but not necessarily.
No scenarios at max level. The only ones being introduced this expansion are basically instanced leveling quests.
Warlords development was slow because they hired a bunch of new people, but future content will come quicker, pinkie swear.

[TheFeniX]

The Blizz devs have really become an untrustworthy lot.

To be fair, it's the WoW dev team that's gone full-Molyneux (a la Fable). They just have something going on I can't comprehend. As was said, they've become completely out of touch with their playerbase at a level that would have likely tanked any other MMO. They found LFR is a functioning expansion of the gear-treadmill and seem to be focusing on it at the expense of everything else.

The only real common thread between the WoW, Starcraft, and Diablo teams seems to be how much they jerk it to the "an ancient evil awakens" motif.

The amount of time it will take for flying to be introduced in Warlords depends entirely on how positive or negative the player reaction is to no flying.

So, flying 2 weeks after release when even the PvP babies get tired of having to actually navigate a map? Honestly, I'm more than happy to see flying gone as a person who is regretting having ever rolled on a PvP server.

The content patch schedule is not set in stone, and seems to be entirely dependent on how much players like or hate the new content and how quickly they can get the next expansion out.
On that vein, there might not be more than 1 raid tier depending on how quickly they can get the next expansion ready. ("Some of it will depend on the time before the next expansion after Warlords. It is very possible that if we are successful and there is a shorter gap, then we won't necessarily want to have multiple raid tier content patches. Each raid content patch needs about four months to breathe. Any less than that and it feels like you really rushed through the content.")

Both of those are terrible ideas. You can't trust the WoW community to agree on anything. There's too many different types of gamers who play the game. Further, even if the raid tier gave free handjobs, people are going to get bored quickly enough. And even mentioning "we'll have to see how fast we crap out the next Orccraft: Orcs vs Orcs Expansion" is fucking terrible marketing. The only hope is that raiding isn't their primary means of keeping the playerbase engaged..... haha, no. Can't wait to see those DPS queue times.

Warlords development was slow because they hired a bunch of new people, but future content will come quicker, pinkie swear.

Development was slow because we hired more people.
Development was slow because we lost/let go some people.
Development was slow because we were stuck with the same amount of people.

The reality is that development is likely slow because the dev team must be continually supplied with copious amounts of cocaine and hooker-asses with which to snort said cocaine off of.

[Kuja]

When even the wow forum base is roundly wondering what the fuck is going on in your head, you've done something seriously wrong.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... 066?page=1

I've seriously never seen so many bright posts at once.

[Darmalus]

Those white knights were trying pretty hard to shift the blame onto the customers, poor Blizzard and those ungrateful customers! You'd almost think Blizzard was selling them a product or something and not giving them the game for free out of the generosity of their hearts.

That report on travel times from the beta tester (Holysugar? Should have saved the page) was pretty horrifying. This clusterfuck of an expansion seems to be aiming to make Cata look good by comparison.

[Civil War Man]

That report on travel times from the beta tester (Holysugar? Should have saved the page) was pretty horrifying. This clusterfuck of an expansion seems to be aiming to make Cata look good by comparison.

That account was pretty damning. When developing what is ostensibly an open world RPG, making travel feel like a chore is a rookie mistake. A company that's been doing this for over a decade has no business making it.

I also liked the post by Nassins (page 4) that translates Chilton's ass-covering language into English.

Post is about halfway down the page

I empathize with Mr. Chilton somewhat. I would imagine his predicament is not new -- it was faced by salesmen of Edsels and Corvairs and Yugos throughout the history of cars.

The expression "lipstick on a pig" is so ridiculously apropos.

I think he's probably scared out of his wits that WoD is going to tank and if it does the impact on ATVI's share price & cap will not be insubstantial. His own developers are doing little to bolster his confidence with infighting, repeated changes in direction, and a player base that's shed 50% of its subscribers in less than four years.

I will translate some of the corporatese for you as well:

"I don't know"/"We don't know" -- I/we know exactly but if I tell you I'll be forced to make a commitment.

"Majority" -- A number between 51% to 99%

"Adding new people to the team caused delays" -- We hired a bunch of people who don't know what they're doing (to replace all of our top talent, who quit) and we have to keep fixing all the stuff they're breaking while doing their OJT.

"We won't be so open about revealing our plans in the future" -- If people never knew it was coming, they won't be mad when we don't put it in.

"We'll let the community decide" -- We've already made up our minds, so we'll gather up all the player feedback that supports our vision, ignore all the rest, and then claim that our idea was beloved by everyone and backed by a huge majority.

"Soon" - Sometime between tomorrow and infinity/the event horizon/the singularity

"Early development" -- Sketch on a napkin

"We value player feedback..." -- "...as long as we like it."

"It wasn't our intent" or "We didn't intend" or "It may have seemed like..." -- We just got caught in a lie and are in damage control mode.

"While we understand that....whatever" -- "We know you're right, but we're going to do it our way regardless."

"While our original plan was X, we decided to do Y" -- Our team is over budget, behind schedule, or we don't know how to make this idea actually work, so we're going to scrap it in favor of something cheap, fast, and simple.

Cleared things up, I hope.

A few people also brought up an interesting point: Blizzard says that they are going to let player feedback decide stuff like if/when flight will be added to Warlords. But during the whole debacle with "The Ashran forts will be the capitals and always were going to be the capitals", they also said that the players don't know what they want. On top of that, their methods of gathering feedback are either imprecise and not representative of the entire playerbase (forums/Twitter), or completely lacking in transparency (whatever tools they use internally, if they even have any). Meaning the players have absolutely no way of accurately seeing what the community as a whole thinks. This means it's more likely that Blizzard is preemptively covering their asses. They do what they want, and if it proves to be wildly unpopular, they can blame the players for the bad decision.

On a similar note, I remember one of the devs saying that revealing that Garrosh was the final boss of Mists as early as they did was a massive mistake, and then Chilton blurts out the name of the final boss of Warlords.

[White Haven]

For that matter, when there's controversy over how many raid tiers Warlords will even have, it's impossible to even define what the final boss of an expansion will be. Remember that Arthas Menethil was not the final boss of Wrath of the Lich King; that honor belongs to some random fucking dragon no one had ever heard of.

Also, having finally gotten around to watching the trailer...wow, you fuckers were absolutely not kidding about World of Orccraft. That's just sad.

[Civil War Man]

For that matter, when there's controversy over how many raid tiers Warlords will even have, it's impossible to even define what the final boss of an expansion will be. Remember that Arthas Menethil was not the final boss of Wrath of the Lich King; that honor belongs to some random fucking dragon no one had ever heard of.

Technically, but very few people acknowledge it as such. Ruby Sanctum was a known filler raid that was added to shorten the content gap, and the boss was there to serve as an in-game introduction to the Twilight Dragons. It was the final boss in the sense that it was the boss of the raid of the last 3.x content patch, but in terms of the narrative it was more the first boss of Cataclysm, which is why people still consider the Lich King to be the final boss of Wrath.

[Kuja]

Halion also wasn't nearly the ballbuster Santa Lichy was.

Also, having finally gotten around to watching the trailer...wow, you fuckers were absolutely not kidding about World of Orccraft. That's just sad.

It's not just sad, it gets a little disturbing how much the Blizz writers lionize characters who we know will go on to commit gross acts of genocide, torture and mass enslavement, and they don't even have the thinly-veiled "but demon blood" excuse this time around. Grom's rallying cry is "we will never be slaves!" but the orcs don't actually have a problem with turning around and putting non-orcs and fail-orcs in chains. There are few races in Warcraft that are as casually and vociferously racist and hypocritical as orcs; even the Forsaken really struggle to hit the kind of atrocities the orcs commit in the name of "muh freedoms."

It really comes down to the Blizz creative team wanting to be orcs. Not write orcs, not play orcs, be orcs. They want to be huge, deep-voiced badasses with muscles on top of muscles, ride sick-ass wolves, shout down whatever they dislike, hit things with axes and rebel against the status quo and "the man" and never think about the consequences of their actions because that's the kind of life that's totally metal. Also a sprinkling of warrior-poet fantasy and something something connection to the earth and the elements because that's super deep.

Hence, everything in wow always comes back to orcs. Nothing in wow has the staying power or overbearing presence of the orc story. Chew on this for a moment - with five expansions now (BC, Wrath, Cata, MoP, WoD) the only plot thread that consistently runs through all of them is the story of Thrall and Garrosh. The only thing that even comes close is the story of the blood elves. Nothing else.

[Darmalus]

Now that you point it out, yeah, it really must be purely the Devs. They can't be responding to player demand, since orcs are in a 3-way tie for 4th place as most popular race.

Still, we should totally have some nice spacegoat lore coming.. right? Right?

Lore aside, I think the make or break for me will be the 6.0 patch before we even see beta-draenor. I don't think there will have been a gameplay change nearly as radical as what is planned, my mage is getting trimmed down about a third of her current abilities. I don't even know how bad it is for other classes.

[TheFeniX]

Yea, I remember watching the original WoW trailer and wanting to play that game, except I was burned out on MMOs after Galaxies. Also, other issues I won't go into now. Blizzard did a good job even in The Burning Crusade trailer of showing the new races, old races still doing their thing, and a glimpse of the main enemy of the expansion. You spend a lot of Outlands fighting Orcs, but they aren't that important in the scheme of things (more like a tool being used), nor does the trailer beat you over the head with Orcs.

Meanwhile, the new Warlords trailer is "Orc strong, also here's some Draenei... for reasons."

The Orcs are just busted as a race. Numerous people point to Thrall as what Orcs are and should be, except that they ignore the rest of the Orcs (some clans more than others) will instantly latch on to any other leader and follow him no matter what, no matter how insane he or his plan is, as long as the end result somehow equates to "Orcs > all." But even the Horde gets shitty writing as now that Voljin is running the show, all the races the Orcs stepped on for an entire expansion are all peachy.

Lore aside, I think the make or break for me will be the 6.0 patch before we even see beta-draenor. I don't think there will have been a gameplay change nearly as radical as what is planned, my mage is getting trimmed down about a third of her current abilities. I don't even know how bad it is for other classes.

I play a Death Knight. They couldn't prune any more abilites or make the class anymore brain-dead to DPS with. Although, they did manage to pull Necrotic Strike out of the game to ensure I never PvP as a DK again. Provided I even come back, I may retire him and see if my guild would rather me run my Mage since I'm always DPSing now. If not, I'll probably run my Paladin. From reading, they've cleaned up the dumbest fucking ability: Inqusition. It made sure PvP and PvE were an annoying ramp-up.

[Sinewmire]

Grom's rallying cry is "we will never be slaves!" but the orcs don't actually have a problem with turning around and putting non-orcs and fail-orcs in chains. There are few races in Warcraft that are as casually and vociferously racist and hypocritical as orcs; even the Forsaken really struggle to hit the kind of atrocities the orcs commit in the name of "muh freedoms."

I'm really really hoping that this expansion will feature Thrall and the other Orcs having to face up that demon blood or no, they're as bad as the humans.

Doubt it though.

[Civil War Man]

I'm really really hoping that this expansion will feature Thrall and the other Orcs having to face up that demon blood or no, they're as bad as the humans.

Doubt it though.

Yeah, about that.

The final raid? The one with you-know-who as the final boss?

It's going to have a heavy Burning Legion influence.

[TheFeniX]

Is MMO-Champion known for Blizz ass-kissing? Because that link is hilarious:

When players get to the Grommash fight, they will see that it is a completely different fight from the Garrosh fight in Siege of Orgrimmar.

Well, one would fucking hope! Does that even deserve mentioning? Really?

There will be more than just Orcs in the raids. For example, there will be a heavy Legion influence in the raid that has Grommash Hellscream.

Well, SoO had some Goblins in it, so it wasn't all Orcs anyways... right?

Rather than armor dyes, the team has made multiple color variations of armor sets and provided different ways for players to earn them. A dye system might cause the team to lose a little bit too much control over the way the world looks. Players coming into the game shouldn't see everyone wearing crazy neon colors or something like that.

Then don't add in "Crazy-neon colors" you fucking moron.

[Civil War Man]

Is MMO-Champion known for Blizz ass-kissing? Because that link is hilarious:

Not really. They pretty much just report on stuff that's been datamined and highlights from the Blues' twitter feeds and forum posts. It's all just a summary of what's being said without making editorial commentary one way or the other. The official posts don't criticize the bad decisions, but neither do they spend any time praising the good ones. If you find the link hilarious, it's because of what the devs are saying, because the link is just "here's a summary of what the devs said in an interview."

As for the forums, they're pretty much like any other forum on a WoW fansite. Posters run the gamut from "Blizzard can do no wrong" to "Blizzard can do no right."

[Sharp-kun]

For what its worth, myself and my friends in the beta think its Rather Good.

Time will tell.

[Kuja]

wowhead

The Thursday release date is mostly just to not release on public holidays
The Raid Release Schedule is as follows:
- Raids will not open for about two and a half weeks
- Normal and Heroic High Maul after two and a half weeks - 2nd December 2014 in the US, 3rd in the EU
- Mythic and LFR High Maul a week later - 9th December 2014 in the US, 10th in the EU
- Several weeks later the second raid will open
Grommash has been the end boss since BlizzCon - the Grommash fight is completely different to the Garrosh fight. There will definitely be more than just Orcs.

[Darmalus]

Not sure what's so funny about that, Kuja? Is this different from the usual raid release schedule?

Unless you mean the bit about Grommash and "more than just Orcs." bit, which I suspect means there will be a Gron boss or something mixed in. Which is a rather amusing piece of weasel-wording.

[Darth Yan]

Halion also wasn't nearly the ballbuster Santa Lichy was.

Also, having finally gotten around to watching the trailer...wow, you fuckers were absolutely not kidding about World of Orccraft. That's just sad.

It's not just sad, it gets a little disturbing how much the Blizz writers lionize characters who we know will go on to commit gross acts of genocide, torture and mass enslavement, and they don't even have the thinly-veiled "but demon blood" excuse this time around. Grom's rallying cry is "we will never be slaves!" but the orcs don't actually have a problem with turning around and putting non-orcs and fail-orcs in chains. There are few races in Warcraft that are as casually and vociferously racist and hypocritical as orcs; even the Forsaken really struggle to hit the kind of atrocities the orcs commit in the name of "muh freedoms."

It really comes down to the Blizz creative team wanting to be orcs. Not write orcs, not play orcs, be orcs. They want to be huge, deep-voiced badasses with muscles on top of muscles, ride sick-ass wolves, shout down whatever they dislike, hit things with axes and rebel against the status quo and "the man" and never think about the consequences of their actions because that's the kind of life that's totally metal. Also a sprinkling of warrior-poet fantasy and something something connection to the earth and the elements because that's super deep.

Hence, everything in wow always comes back to orcs. Nothing in wow has the staying power or overbearing presence of the orc story. Chew on this for a moment - with five expansions now (BC, Wrath, Cata, MoP, WoD) the only plot thread that consistently runs through all of them is the story of Thrall and Garrosh. The only thing that even comes close is the story of the blood elves. Nothing else.

Blame Shitty writing. Personally I hope that this is what forces the orcs to finally own up to their history and thus give an actual apology/make more effort to redeem themselves. That's what SHOULD have been in Burning Crusade (i.e. the Orcs cold have interacted with the draenei, been forced to own up to their role in their fall, and the finally mature further as a race.) They were cool in BC because they actually tried to redeem themselves.

[Sharp-kun]

Unless you mean the bit about Grommash and "more than just Orcs." bit, which I suspect means there will be a Gron boss or something mixed in. Which is a rather amusing piece of weasel-wording.

They already said that the Legion are involved.

I suspect Grom is going to fall regardless of Garrosh's attempts to change things.

[TheFeniX]

Blame Shitty writing. Personally I hope that this is what forces the orcs to finally own up to their history and thus give an actual apology/make more effort to redeem themselves. That's what SHOULD have been in Burning Crusade (i.e. the Orcs cold have interacted with the draenei, been forced to own up to their role in their fall, and the finally mature further as a race.) They were cool in BC because they actually tried to redeem themselves.

We can't even (at least as far as I know) find out what happened to the thousands of Orcs who followed Garrosh on his rampage of murder, slavery, and racism. Are the Horde going to just let them back in? Or will Orcs get shit on by Org guards now?

What about all the Alliance prisoners from Theramore? What about the Belfs rotting in the Violet Hold? Even though the Kirin Tor were neutral at the time, I'm sure Lorethemar wants them back. If anything is given on these fronts, it probably going to be handled by books (only $20 on Amazon!) and we'll see nothing in game.

[Darmalus]

With my heart still hammering in my chest, I just finished off my last Silver Challenge Mode and claimed my pandaren phoenix.

Now I just need to polish off Brawlers Guild and then my only goal till WoD will be fuck around for a few months.

[TheFeniX]

I just realized I once again forgot to equip my legendaries before logging out for the last time. Meh....

You got Paladin guy down yet in Brawlers?

[Darmalus]

I just realized I once again forgot to equip my legendaries before logging out for the last time. Meh....

You got Paladin guy down yet in Brawlers?

Not yet, put Brawlers on hold when I found a CM group. On the plus side since the Brawlers Guild will have exactly the same rewards in WoD I'll have even less need for gear in WoD than in MoP.